It’s taken 12 years, but the former Hotel Syracuse is once again open to the public. Rebranded as the Marriott Syracuse Downtown, visitors began staying at the historic structure in downtown Syracuse on Friday. It means a huge boost not only economically, but to the psyche of central New York, a region battered by a faltering economy and dwindling population in recent years.

Last November, the Great Law of Peace Center opened on Onondaga Lake, replacing the Ste. Marie Among the Iroquois exhibit. The new center is focused on and driven by the history and culture of the Haudenosaunee and more specifically, the Onondaga Nation. This week on the Campbell Conversations, host Grant Reeher is joined by Onondaga Nation Faith-keeper Oren Lyons, and Onondaga Historical Association executive director Gregg Tripoli to discuss the new center, the politics and negotiations involved in making the change, and the history of the Haudenosaunee and the Law of Peace.

Work will start soon on the restoration of Gustav Stickley’s Syracuse home, one of the founders of the arts and crafts movement in this country. It will become a museum dedicated to the Stickley Craftsman design, with a twist.

Construction of a new cultural center at the old French fort along Onondaga Lake begins this week. The new Skä·noñh Great Law of Peace Center will take the place of the former Sainte Marie Among the Iroquois museum site. The new cultural center will tell the history of the Onondaga Nation, from their perspective.

A sharply divided city argues over whether to keep a major transit link running through downtown, or to route it around the outskirts of town.

It’s nearly the same debate going on today, but this was in the 1920s. Then, Syracuse was arguing over whether to build an elevated rail corridor through downtown, as Dennis Connors, curator of the Onondaga Historical Association explains.

"And there was a whole campaign, the pro-leave it downtown and elevate it, versus the move it out of downtown and put it around the north side of the city," he said.

An exhibition at the Onondaga Historical Association Museum in downtown Syracuse displays the work of 19th century photographer George Barnard. Barnard kept studios in Syracuse and Oswego and took some of the first photographs there in the 1850s.

It’s said that on St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. In Syracuse, that’s a little truer. A sixth of the population claims to be of Irish ancestry, more than any other city in New York state.

It was the potato famine in Ireland and the rise of the salt industry in central New York both happening in the mid-1800s that brought so many Irish people to the city, according to Dennis Connors, curator of the Onondaga Historical Association.

The Onondaga Historical Association turns 150 this year. Friday night they hold a Jubilee Celebration in Syracuse University's Carnegie Hall that also marks the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.